Election of the Queen
Paris of the 19th century was home to a boisterous and hard-working female corporation. Nearly one hundred thousand washerwomen worked either in the brick-and-mortar laundries across the city, or in the bateaux-lavoirs – wooden constructions floating on the river. They labored twelve to fifteen hours a day, six days a week, with no sick leave or paid vacation. Once a year though, Paris treated them like royalty. During the feasts of Mid-Lent, the streets of Paris exploded with the frenzy of carnival, whose principal actors were the washerwomen. With great pomp and circumstance, the women of each lavoir elected a queen and the new sovereigns, escorted by masks, paraded on the boulevards in elaborate floats. Much drinking and merry-making accompanied the procession. In the 1890’s city authorities decided to nominate the Queen of Queens—the best of all the locally elected queens—to represent the spirit of the feast. This custom survived into the 20th century when it was interrupted by the WWII and was never fully revived.
The Queen and her entourage
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The Queen of Queens received by her sponsors
Other post of interest:
Mi-Carême: An Explosion of Joy in the Midst of Gloom
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Victorian Paris 
What a hard life. I’ll never complain about doing laundry again. I’m glad they had a least one day of appreciation.
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Reblogged this on First Night History.
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Embarrassingly, prior to reading your post I’d thought that the bateaux-lavoirs were like docks to actually wash boats, which of course makes very little sense. Thank you for the post!!
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Interesting snippet of history.
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This is really interesting! A bit of pampering in a life otherwise filled with back-breaking work.
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